Must Read Money Stories, Monday, Oct. 6

Welcome to a new feature at BusinessJournalism.org. Each day, we’ll be posting Must Read Money Stories. We’re on the lookout for links, photos, graphics and videos that set the pace in money and journalism.

The splits in the business world are continuing. Publishing companies have split their print and broadcast businesses. Ebay recently said it would shed PayPal. Late Sunday, the Wall Street Journal got the scoop that Hewlett-Packard will be dividing into two companies. This has been floated as an idea before, but now H-P is going ahead. The move, expected to take place by the end of H-P’s fiscal year, will mean more job cuts. H-P stock rose about 5 percent in the wake of the news.

Are reporters missing a bigger Amazon story? For weeks, authors and publishers have been doing battle with Amazon.com. The big marketplace Web site has made it hard to customers to purchase books from some houses, especially Hachette, which won’t agree to new fees. Now, Margaret Sullivan, the public editor at The New York Times, suggests a key piece of the story is being overlooked. Sullivan wrote Sunday that it’s a tale of digital disruption, not a fight between good and evil. Said Sullivan: “I would like to see more unemotional exploration of the economic issues; more critical questioning of the statements of big-name publishing players; and greater representation of those who think Amazon may be a boon to a book-loving culture, not its killer.” (For a counterpoint, check out tweets from Times critic A.O. Scott, @aoscott.)

Tesla’s big mystery seems to be self-driving related. Last week, Tesla CEO Elon Musk sent Twitter and the stock market a-twittering when he tweeted a photo of the front end of a car and the letter D. It seems that D has something to do with self-driving cars. Automotive News says the electric-car maker will be announcing a bunch of new technology features, including one that helps keep drivers from driving out of their lane. Everyone in the auto industry has been exploring self-driving ideas, but Tesla always gets tons of attention for anything it does.

Through the front door at JP Morgan Chase. Reynolds graduate assistant Sonali Sen suggests you check out this video from Bloomberg, which lays out what’s happened in the big data breech at JP Morgan Chase. Some 76 million people are believed to be affected, and it looks like the hackers came right in JP Morgan Chase’s front door, says Hans Nichols at Bloomberg.

Have ideas for Must Read Money Stories? Send them to micheline.maynard@asu.edu.